When FP4Party started back in September 2016, the organisers and I had no idea it would turn into the community phenomenon was by the final party month in December 2016.

Let me be clear: I don’t use that word lightly and I certainly don’t use it to show off.

You see, what started off as a simple conversation talking about a nice way to celebrate this beautiful film stock literally exploded into a community in it’s own right. Over the course of the four months FP4 Party ran for in 2016, we saw nearly 1000 images posted using the #FP4Party hashtag on Twitter and ~400 votes submitted by you, the #FP4Party community, to help crown a monthly “winner”.

We saw established and experienced photographers posting alongside those who have only recently discovered film.

We saw photographers who have been shooting FP4+ their entire lives posting images alongside those who had just finished their first roll.

We saw people create their own mini challenges – #KitchenBattle, anyone?

We saw photographers who had given up on FP4 and FP4+ years ago come back to the film and learn to appreciate it in a way that they hadn’t expected.

From a more personal perspective, the panel (Diz and Shawn Mozmode), and I saw how photographers, focused on shooting a specific film stock developed their photography over the course of the four months. We saw roll-on-roll progression, improvement and finesse. We saw people developing styles and it’s still all there for you to see for yourself at #FP4Party.

Yes, we had community selected winners at the end of each month but there were no prizes, simply community recognition of a job well done.

It was tough. With 300+ entries in the final two months, whittling down to only a few dozen was not an enviable task. Diz, Shawn and I have taken steps to improve both our selection process, as well as the format of both FP4 Party 2017 and other upcoming film parties – more on that later.

Before moving on, please allow me an indulgence and let’s have a quick look back at the community winners of FP4 Party 2016, Craig Pindell (September 2016), Ady Kerry (October 2016), Maite Pons (November 2016) and Rui De Silva (December 2016).

 

December 2016 Winner: Craig Pindell – @cpindell1
2016’s Never Forget photo. Most important photo of the year to me, trusted to Ilford products.

Craig Pindell - @cpindell1 - 2016's Never Forget photo. Most important photo of the year to me, trusted to Ilford products.

 

October 2016 Winner: Ady Kerry – @AdyKerry

Storm clouds over the English Channel

Storm clouds over the English Channel

 

November 2016 Winner: Maite Pons – @pons_maite
First time at this #FP4Party @FP4Party! #worldtradecenter #Oculus #nyc

Maite Pons - @pons_maite - First time at this #FP4Party @FP4Party! #worldtradecenter #Oculus #nyc

 

December 2016 Winner: Rui da Silva – ‏@ryusilva
What’s a #FP4Party without a smile? (even if it’s a blurry one) @ILFORDPhoto @EMULSIVEfilm @FP4Party #yashicaelectro35 #Postweek #35mm

Dec 21 2017 - Rui Silva

 

Congratulations to you all.

 

 

What’s this all about?

As we got close to the final party I reached out to ILFORD and asked them if they would like to be involved in some way. Their response was simple:

“There have been some stunning shots on @FP4Party, it must be doing well as my feed seems full of FP4+ and I’m often having to search for posts on our other media.

We’d love to be involved in the final month, how about if you shortlist some images and we choose the winner? Then our lab (www.ilfordlab.com) will create a traditional silver gelatin print and frame the winning image for them.”

So, once the Rui Silva was announced as the winner of December’s party, a shortlist of the each winning image, plus three runners-up from each month was sent to ILFORD for review. Runners-up, just like the previous months winners, were selected based on number of community votes received.

A further shortlist was returned back to me after some internal deliberation at ILFORD and I set about asking the final group for high resolution images to be sent over for review.

At the time of writing, the five ILFORD-shortlisted photographers know that a second round of secret judging has been in progress. They don’t know who’s been doing the judging and what it’s all about…sneaky, eh? 😉

Let’s get started.

 

 

FP4 Party December 2016 – final award runners-up

Each of the four runner-up photographs will be awarded four rolls of ILFORD film. In alphabetical order the runner-up awards go to:

 

Runner up award 01: Maite Pons – @pons_maite
First time at this #FP4Party @FP4Party! #worldtradecenter #Oculus #nyc

Maite Pons - @pons_maite - First time at this #FP4Party @FP4Party! #worldtradecenter #Oculus #nyc

 

Runner up award 02: Maite Pons – ‏@PonsMaite
Am I late to the party? My scans arrived today and this is my favorite! #FP4Party #believeinfilm #filmisnotdead

Dec 24 2017 - Maite Pons

 

Runner up award 03: Matt P – @mparry1234
Here’s my favourite from the roll of Ilford FP4+. Rodinal 1:25. Olympus 35SP / yellow filter

Matt P - @mparry1234 - Here's my favourite from the roll of Ilford FP4+. Rodinal 1:25. Olympus 35SP / yellow filter

 

Runner up award 04: Sandy Phimester – ‏@SandyPhimester
@FP4Party large format 4×5 on a rainy, cold day with Amy. Aero Ektar lens and shot at box speed #FP4Party

Sandy Phimester - ‏@SandyPhimester - @FP4Party large format 4x5 on a rainy, cold day with Amy. Aero Ektar lens and shot at box speed #FP4Party

Congratulations to all of you and thank you for taking part. I’ll be in touch with further details but if you get impatient, just send me an email/DM.

 

 

FP4 Party December 2016 – final award winner

A HUGE congratulations to Tom Rayfield for his entry “Holkham” in November 2016’s #FP4Party. Here’s his winning image:

 

Tom Rayfield ‏- @mr_rayfield
Holkham. My last image of the week for #FP4Party #PostWeek #BelieveInFilm #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Yashica124G

Tom Rayfield ‏- @mr_rayfield - Holkham. My last image of the week for #FP4Party #PostWeek #BelieveInFilm #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Yashica124G

It’s an undeniably powerful image and all credit to Tom for capturing it so beautifully! Tom will be receiving a framed print from ILFORD’s Lab – www.ilfordlab.com. Congratulations again and please drop me a line!

 

 

What’s next for FP4Party?

In short, it will be back.

The plan was always to run the party for only a few months before moving onto another film stock. FP4Party will be back later this year but first, you can look forward spending some time with the following incoming film parties:

 

March 2017 – April 2017: TMAXParty (@TMAX_party)
Celebrating Kodak TMAX 100, 400 and 3200 in any format of your choice.

May 2017: NEOPANtastic (coming soon)
Celebrating Fuji Neopan in all its flavours. Inspired by Sandeep Sumal and Barnaby Nutt, this (initially) one month blast will be asking you to make the most of the now discontinued NEOPAN 400, 400CN and 1600, as well as the still available NEOPAN ACROS 100 (Yes, ACROS is NEOPAN!)

June 2017 – August 2017: SummerFilmParty (coming soon)
With summer upon us, we’ll be handing over to slide film, BW/Color Infrared film, X-RAY film, anything that benefits from the summer sun.

September 2017 – November 2017: DeltaDefJam (@DeltaDefJam)
Celebrating ILFORD Delta Professional film stocks: 100, 400 and 3200

December 2017 – February 2018: FP4Party (FP4Party)
No introduction required. FP4 Party will return in 2017!

 

These dates are TENTATIVE and subject to change. We’ll be providing details for each, just as soon as we can. Expect @TMAX_party details within a fortnight from now, with more to follow.

So, all that’s left to be said is thank you all so much for making FP4 Party 2016 such a huge success. I hope to see you all taking part in the future film parties listed above and if you have any ideas, feel free to drop me a line in the comments below.

I’d also like to send a huge thanks to Diz and Shawn Mozmode for helping to manage the FP4 Party Twitter account (Shawn is the Circus Master there). Thank you for being an integral part of the (often painful) shortlisting process and mostly helping to keep me sane. There’s no escape now.

And once again, thank you all for your support in not only keeping film alive, but also in the vibrancy of the community you have made and continue to grow.

Much love to you all.

~ EMULSIVE

 

 

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10 responses to “FP4 Party 2016: epilogue and award announcement”

  1. Stunning images, all of them.

    FP4 is by far my favourite film. I’ve tried them all and I keep coming back to it. Great tonal range and contrast, holds fine shadow detail well without blowing highlights; and as a bonus, it dries flat !

  2. I was too late for FP4Party but I’m already shopping TMAX and NEOPAN… 🙂

  3. @ILFORDPhoto and congratulations @mr_rayfield !! So well deserved!

  4. @ILFORDPhoto and congratulations @mr_rayfield !! So well deserved!

  5. @ILFORDPhoto congratulations once again to all winners and to everyone took part to the party: I’ve seen wonderful works

  6. @ILFORDPhoto oh wow, I’m floored…! I still can’t believe my work was selected among such talent! Thank you so much!!

  7. Dear all,
    All those images were stunning-congratulations!
    I’m glad Sandy got one of the runners up prizes-that image haunts my dreams:)
    Looks like I will have 2 buy some Neopan/Infra-red film to take part 🙂
    Regards,

  8. Yep, that final, absolute, last and ultimate winning picture is excellent and I’m sure will look magnificent as a print.
    Great work…

  9. @ILFORDPhoto seeing all these images side-by-side is pretty impressive what people are doing with FP4+ out there. Lovely job!

 

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